Deming man held in criminal sex case involving minors

Criminal case involves 11 charges of sexual offenses involving minors

A local man wanted for questioning by Luna County Sheriff's Office investigators turned himself in on Friday and was charged with criminal sexual offenses involving minors.

Louis Garcia, 42, was notified by a neighbor that the sheriff's office was looking for him. He went to the LCSO to find out why law enforcement officials were wanting to talk to him. When his name was ran through NCIC, it came back with warrants for four counts of criminal sexual penetration of a minor, five counts of criminal sexual contact of a minor and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

According to the LCSO report, Garcia allegedly victimized two family members on several occasions: an adopted son and a niece. The adopted son and niece were allegedly victimized in 2007 and the son alone on April of this year.

LCSO Investigator Michael Brown is in charge of the case and said he has been hard at work on this over the past two months.

"Mr. Garcia is going to be considered innocent until proven guilty," Brown said. "We believe we have a pretty solid case. I just hope that he gets the help he needs and more importantly, his victims get the help they need from this terrible tragedy."

According to the sheriff's report, on April 12, Garcia picked his children from their mother's house and touched one of his minor children inappropriately. The mother became suspicious that something had happened because the child no longer wanted to visit his father and began asking questions of a sexual nature.

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A previous incident in May of 2013 was also reported to investigators where two minor children had been forced to commit sexual acts on each other by Garcia. The children's mother allegedly told Garcia of the incident, too of which, he denied and the incident was not reported to law enforcement.

According to the report, the mother again confronted Garcia of the alleged sexual abuse and Garcia denied it all. She then called Central Dispatch to report the abuse.

Investigator Brown was notified and took over the investigation. Following interviews with the children he contacted the District Attorney's Office to file charges on Garcia.

Children Youth and Families Division was notified to remove the children from Garcia's residence until the investigation is completed.

Garcia is being held at the Luna County Detention Center on $200,000 cash-only bond and is awaiting his arraignment.